The Praying Pooper

It was one of those rare teachable moments when a teacher soaks up every minute of her pupil's attention.  The young mind was primed and ready to learn after seeing me pray the rosary many times before.  His four year old attention was steadily focused on the rosary for a good 15 minutes.  It was actually the first time he followed along on each every bead from the Apostle's creed to the middle of the third decade.  He helped offer up his intentions for the rosary and seemed to really listen and pay attention to every explanation I had to offer for the different parts of the rosary.  He even chimed in on his interpretation of the Joyful mysteries. 

This is a dream come true, I thought.  For so long- since before he was born, actually, I had dreamt of passing along the Faith to my future children.  I played it out in my head about how I would teach my children my love for our Catholic Faith and how they would sit there, wide eyed, soaking up every word.  Then came the kids... and their energy... and their short, short, short attention spans.  Until recently, Liam seemed to not care about anything other than trains.  Now that his interests are growing, I'm trying to throw in little bits of theology here and there. But never I have I been able to make him sit through any part of the rosary. 

But today was different.  Today I when I told him I was going to pray the rosary, he stayed.  When I brought out the rosary, he reached for it and I went with the flow.  I told him where to hold, how we start and then we began.  He held on to each bead, and I prayed aloud.   We got all the way to the third decade when he finally started to get antsy.  I took the rosary and started praying it on my own while he squirmed around next to me.

Then I smelled it. Liam had been having trouble about going poop and pee in the potty, but it had been several days since he last pooped in his pants.  I checked his pants and sure enough, the little twerp had left a significant brown spot in his underwear.  I sent him off the bathroom to clean up himself as much as he could, but when I went in to help him a few minutes later, the grossness factor went up ten notches.  There was poop everywhere and now I had to clean it all up. 

The irony of it all!  There I was, in a near dream like state, thinking I had finally nailed the teachable moment, when all along my four year old was just pooping in his pants!! God has a sense of humor, and tomorrow, I may think this is funny.